I don’t know which is harder – to have life going well, or to have lots of difficulties. I’d rather life was good. Of course I would. But I don’t know which makes it harder to follow Jesus. Harder to live for God’s purposes. Harder to trust God’s promises.
If life is tough, God can seem so distant. How do we trust a God who doesn’t do anything about the problems we’re facing? If life is good, God can seem unnecessary. Why do we need to trust God, if life seems to take care of itself, and God’s already given us what we need.
The closing scenes of Joseph’s life shows us the way. Joseph looks back on hard times. And he looks forward to better times. And in both, his attitude is that God’s promises and purposes are what matter. He’s a man of faith.
In tough times, confidence in God’s purposes helps us forgive
In the first scene of our passage, we see Joseph look back on the tough times. And he’s had plenty. And mostly, his brothers were the cause of them.
Verse 15: When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead. They’re worried. They’ve been absolutely horrible to Joseph. They sold him into slavery. They tried to kill him. Because of them he was imprisoned in Egypt. The family had come back together, but now their father Jacob had died. What if Jacob was all that separated Joseph from vengeance on them? What if he now tried to get his own back? He was the second most powerful man in Egypt.
So they concoct a story. It’s a load of old rubbish, but Joseph might just buy it. Verse 16: Your father gave this command before he died. ‘Say to Joseph, Please forgive the transgression of your brothers and their sin, because they did evil to you.’ And now, please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father.
They are saying sorry. What they did was wrong. It wasn’t just wrong, it was sin – it was wrong against God. But they’re not sure that Joseph will want to forgive them. So they pretend that Jacob had asked Joseph to forgive them.
And here’s Joseph’s answer, in verse 19: Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. So do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones.
Joseph forgives them. More than that, he’s kind to them. He provides for them.
And he can do so because God was at work.
Let’s be in no doubt. God did not bring all this trouble to Joseph. His brothers did. Joseph is quite clear – they meant evil against him. They meant to harm him. They did this.
But through the brother’s evil scheming, God was at work to achieve his purposes. God saved the lives of countless Egyptians. God saved the lives of Jacob’s family. God made sure that Joseph was in Egypt, got the job of Prime Minister, and handled the famine superbly. But he did that, through the brothers doing all the awful things that they did.
Who did all the wrong to Joseph? His brothers. Not God. God never does anything wrong. Whose purposes were being worked out? God’s. His brothers had no clue.
That’s the God we’ve got. He’s able to take the bad things that people do, and achieve his good purposes through them. They remain bad things. God’s not pleased by them. It’s painful to be on the receiving end of them. And yet, at the end, God has achieved something quite wonderful through it.
In the Sahara desert is a memorial. You can see it from space. It’s a dark circle of stones, with a silhouette of an aeroplane in the middle. Near the front of the plane is the wingtip of a DC10 aircraft. A flight from Congo to Paris blew up over that spot in 1989. This is to remember it.
It’s beautiful to look at, although slightly eerie. If that plane had not blown up it would never have been put there.
That’s not what we’re talking about here. God did not erect a pretty memorial to the cruelty done to Joseph. This is much more wonderful. The brothers meant to harm Joseph. To take life. God wonderfully used that to bless Joseph and his brothers. To save lives.
Let me give you another example that you’re more familiar with. The death of Jesus. Could you come with me to Acts chapter 4? Page 593. I’m going to read verses 27 and 28: Truly in this city were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.
What was done to Jesus was truly awful. A miscarriage of justice on the largest scale ever. A murderer or terrorist was set free. An innocent man was sentenced to death.
So who did it? Verse 27: Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel. People. Lots of them. Not God. God never does anything wrong. Especially not as monstrous as this. But whose purposes were being worked out? God’s. Verse 28: to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. The people in Jerusalem had no idea.
It’s the same God we see in Genesis chapter 50. Jesus death was the worst atrocity ever committed. And yet God’s able to take that, and achieve his good purposes through them.
And God hasn’t changed. Could you turn over again to Romans chapter 8. Page 614. A very famous verse, verse 28: And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. He’s been talking about the fact there is still so much suffering in the world. So many bad things happen to us. And yet, if you’re a Christian, all things work for your good. God is working out his good purposes in your life through everything that happens to you. Even the bad things that happen.
Now I mustn’t mislead you. God is quite specific about the good he works through the bad experiences we have. In Joseph’s story, God kept Jacob and his family alive. Remember this is the family through which God has promised to bless the world. If they died out in the famine, that would have fallen apart. Ultimately, Jesus would never have been born. But through Joseph’s brothers scheming, God saved the family, and his plan was on track.
It’s the same with the death of Jesus. What good did it achieve? Everyone who trusts him can be forgiven. Death was defeated. We are adopted as God’s children. I could go on and on. All because Pilate, Herod and the crowds conspired to put an innocent man to death.
And it’s the same with us. If you’ve still got Romans 8 open, God works for good verse 28. Why? Verse 29: So that we may be conformed to the image of his son. And ultimately, verse 30, so that we might be glorified. God is able to work through everything that happens to us. Even the really bad things. And the main good he’s doing is making us more like Jesus.
As Joseph looks back, he’s able to see God’s hand in all the bad things that happened. God was working his purposes out, even while he was on the receiving end of his brothers’ cruelty.
And it’s this that means he can forgive his brothers. They come to him. They say sorry. And he says, it’s OK, I can see what God was doing through the things you did.
Jesus does the same for us, doesn’t he? It wasn’t just Herod and Pilate who put Jesus on the cross. It was my sin and yours that put him there. Jesus wasn’t just killed for me. He was killed by me. And yet we come to him and we say sorry. Sorry for all the wrong things we’ve done that put him on that cross. And he says to us: “It’s OK. I forgive you. Through all the horrors of my crucifixion, God the Father was accomplishing his plan to forgive people just like you. And I’ll provide for you and bless you as well.”
So what happens when other people do things to hurt us? Not accidentally but deliberately. When people try to hurt our feelings. When we’re accused of doing things we know we didn’t do. When someone deliberately passes us by because they know it will hurt.
It’s so hard to forgive other people for the things they do to us. But we can be sure that God is working out his purposes through what they did. He’s making us more like Jesus.
Therefore, when they come to us and say sorry, we can look back and know that God was at work. They meant to hurt us. But God knew what he was doing, and they’ve said sorry. If Jesus could forgive us at that moment, we can forgive them.
That’s Joseph looking back on the bad times. He was confident in God’s purposes. So he could forgive.
In good times, confidence in God’s purposes helps us look forwards
And then he looks forwards. He’s blessed by God. He gets to see his great-grandchildren. Life is good in Egypt.
How easy it would be to forget God.
But he doesn’t. Before he dies, Joseph speaks to his brothers. Verse 24: I am about to die, but God will visit you and bring you up out of this land to the land that he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
He hasn’t forgotten God’s promise.
Verse 25: Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, ‘God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here’.
Joseph is clear where his home is. His home is not in Egypt. It’s in Canaan. He has to be buried to Egypt, for now, but he wants to be taken home when the time comes.
For all that he was at home in Egypt, he had not gone native. He knew that God had promised things that were still future. He trusted those promises. He lived and died for those promises.
And in this, he’s an example to us. Don’t turn there, but Hebrews chapter 11 is a wonderful chapter. It tells of some heroes of faith in the Old Testament. Characters who lived for things they could not yet see. They had to take God’s word for it. And in verse 22, Joseph gets a mention. By faith, Joseph, at the end of his life, made mention of the exodus of the Israelites and gave directions concerning his bones.
That, says the writer of the Hebrews, is a mark of Joseph’s faith. All he could see was Egypt. But he knew the promises of God. And he lived by those, rather than by what he could see.
When life goes well, if we’re not careful, all we can see is life going well. Some people live as though they can take all the credit for their success. Other people remember to thank God for it. But we’re happy with our lot. We stop looking forwards. God has plans and purposes beyond just this life, but they go on the back seat.
Not so with Joseph. Again, this is crucial if God’s plan for Jacob’s family is to succeed. They must not just get swallowed up by Egypt. They must remember who they are. They must remember what God has promised. They must remember where to call home.
And so must we. More people are derailed spiritually by the good seasons of their life than through the crises. We lose sight of how important our relationship with God is. We lose sight of the fact that eternity is much longer than the decades we live on earth. We forget that our friends and family have no deeper need than to know the Lord Jesus. And we go native.
And so during the good years, Joseph looks forwards. God’s purposes still stand. One day, God will come and rescue you from here. And when he does, don’t forget to take my bones back home.
Conclusion
I said at the beginning that I don’t know whether it’s harder to trust and follow God during the good times of life, or during the knocks and blows we endure.
I don’t know. It doesn’t matter which is harder.
What matters is that we follow God and live for his plans and purposes. Some of us are having a good season at the moment. Others of us have really been through some tough times.
In the hard periods, seeing God’s purposes will enable us to forgive others. And in the good times, seeing God’s purposes will enable us to look forwards.